FAH1223 wrote:nate33 wrote:Dark Faze wrote:
Well the others in the running were Guiliani and Romney--and the former is off the table. Just give it to Romney. At the time some of Trumps base were pissed about the idea of Romney but it's not as though Romney hasn't brought a ton of Goldman Sachs people on board either. He's just doing what he wants now so I don't think the next person will be as bad as Tillerson.
I don't think Romney was ever actually in the running. Trump was trying to let the establishment know he was at least open-minded about their people, when in fact he never was. Alternatively, Trump was torturing Romney like a cat tortures a mouse. I wouldn't put it past Trump. He punishes people who cross him and Romney crossed him in the most damaging way possible.
Romney is also anti-Russia. Also in the neocon camp though not as aggressive as someone like Bolton. Romney would have probably performed as John Kerry has though he could be definitely pushed into Hillary/Colin Powell territory of supporting regime change policies.
The US deep state is divided. I think for the first time the neocons/staunch pro Israel folks have overtaken the realists and traditionals. The US has overstretched itself with stupid wars and interventions (and further threats against Iran) and accelerated the alliances of Russia-China into a marriage. It basically allowed Russia to escape any threats of regime change in Moscow. The nationalists are in power and the pro-western figures have no power anymore. If Putin nationalizes the Central Bank, that'd be a huge deal.
For example, if a deal was made with Iran in 2005, when it was begging for it, Iranian oil and gas and Qatari oil and gas could have supplied Europe and sidelined Russia, weakening it and making regime change possible, and checkmating China.
The choice was do you want to remain the only superpower, maintain dollar hegemony? Or do you want to destroy Iran because Israel wishes it so?
They choose the latter and the intense sanctions regime. India, Turkey, and South Korea were told by the US to abide by the Iran sanctions regime which hurt their economies so they found a loophole to bypass the sanctions and traded with Iran in mutual currencies and gold to get the Iranian oil they needed. John Kerry admitted the motivation for the Iran Deal was to maintain the dollar otherwise this practice would spread with China/Russia united on moving away from the dollar system. Xi Jinping also kept Iran alive and was the first foreign leader in Tehran last year after sanctions were lifted. Iran became a ground zero experiment by China and other US allies for de-dollarization.
The empire of bases and chaos cannot be sustained due to the decline of the dollar.
Every transaction you make, even in Canadian dollars , any Arab gold currency, EURO, as well as most of the worlds currencies involve the US dollar in the transaction. From every transaction a small percentage funds the ever replenishing credit card which is the US Dollar.
The trend towards de-dollarization is rapid, and in our lifetime 10-20 years the US will be just one of several major world currencies. This means that there will be constraints on US spending, especially military. The US cannot afford trillion dollar **** like Iraq and Afghanistan, and the massive corruption in the military industrial complex will run out of juice.
Good post, FAH1223. I agree that the decline of the dollar as the world's currency is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The fantasy foreign policy where the U.S. can strongarm countries to get whatever it wants, wherever it wants has come to an end. Perennial war in the Middle East is no longer possible. Military threats against Russia are now insane. Picking and choosing the regimes to run various Middle Eastern countries is no longer feasible.
It'll be interesting to see how things shake out under Trump. On one hand, Trump has expressed reservations about the U.S. meddling overseas, including the Middle East, NATO and even Japan. He seems like he wants to scale back our commitments, or at least demand better compensation for them. On the other hand, he talks really tough about ISIS, and it seems like the Jewish support he gets in his administration are from the more Zionistic, Israeli-nationalist end of the spectrum. Is that a hint that he will sacrifice American blood and treasure in defense of Israel? That would presumably embroil us in more Middle Eastern wars.